If you’ve seen as many deals as our Deals team has, you’re probably familiar with the type of too-good-to-be-true specials that frequently pop up on Groupon and eBay. These products are listed as “new,” despite being marked at well below street price. Many readers ask us why we don’t post them. Simply put, there’s a catch: If it isn’t coming from a recognized seller and it doesn’t have a manufacturer’s warranty, it’s probably from the “gray market”—which means it’s being sold outside of authorized channels.

Often, gray-market items were meant for sale overseas but ended up imported into the US without the original manufacturer’s consent. Sellers do this to get around the minimum prices manufacturers set for different markets—retailers in the US, for example, might not be allowed to sell a given lens for under $799, while a retailer based in Malaysia may be allowed to sell it for the equivalent of $599. Gray-market importers see these price differentials as an opportunity to make some money reselling the less-expensive international versions of products into the domestic market.

Though gray-market products will work and feel like new products out of the box (because that’s usually what they are), if anything goes wrong, these “deals” can cause more trouble than they’re worth.

Camera equipment is commonly found marked down in the gray market. “Camera companies can be notoriously fickle about dealing with gray-market imports,” explained Wirecutter imaging editor Tim Barribeau. “Most won’t honor a warranty from out of country, but even worse than that, I’ve heard stories of companies even totally refusing to repair cameras bought elsewhere. Nikon in particular has a bad reputation for dealing with out of country products, so you might not just be stuck with something that you can’t return if broken, but something where a small issue can’t get fixed. Even worse, camera gear, if not packed correctly, can get knocked out of kilter and be rendered useless during shipping. It’s best to go through established channels, even if it means paying more.”

This brand-new Canon zoom looks like a great deal at $250 less than you’d usually pay. Screenshot: Adam Burakowski

Though it’s not illegal for you to buy gray-market items—they’re legitimate products—they may differ from those intended for sale in the US. They could potentially have different features or controls, their documentation and on-device menus might be in different languages, or they might be manufactured differently, using different materials. This is why the products aren’t covered by US warranties or the manufacturer’s support.

Because we test only US product models, we can’t be sure if the international versions will work as well as their domestic equivalents, and you might not be able to turn to the manufacturer for help should something go wrong. We think warranties are important. If you’re buying an item meant to last a few years—especially an item you can’t easily afford to replace—the lack of a manufacturer’s warranty can be too big of a risk. We don’t think this way about gray-market products only; it’s our stance about all products in general.

How to identify gray-market products

So, how can you tell if a deal is for a gray-market product? The easiest way is to look carefully at the seller and its information. If the item’s price from that seller is consistently lower than the same item’s prices from other retailers selling the US model, that “deal” is likely for a gray-market item. As we mentioned earlier, gray-market goods are almost always priced a fair bit lower than their domestic-market versions for a number of reasons, including lower prices available overseas, exchange rates, and avoidance of traditional distribution and retail channels. For example, the eBay seller photovideo4less sells the Nikon D7200 for $800 new, which is almost $300 less than the price for a new US model.

Photovideo4less sells the Nikon D7200 for hundreds less than other retailers, but note that the camera is sold without a warranty. Screenshot: Adam Burakowski

You can also try to research the seller to find out if it is an authorized dealer for the product’s manufacturer. Sometimes manufacturers (like Sony and DJI) list their authorized dealers on their websites.

Gray-market goods also tend to not have a manufacturer’s warranty. In general, a product might come without a warranty for a few different reasons (refurbished products, for example, are often sold without full warranties), so the lack of a warranty doesn’t guarantee an item is from the gray market, but it does indicate that buying that product is probably not a no-strings-attached deal. Sometimes the seller may provide a limited warranty with the product, but if the seller isn’t authorized to sell the product in the first place, it probably doesn’t provide the best repair service either. Furthermore, without a manufacturer’s warranty, authorized repair shops and sellers won’t touch your item if it breaks. Though third-party warranty services (e.g., SquareTrade) exist, we’ve heard mixed reports as to if these services honor their warranties on gray-market items.

If you’ve already made a purchase and still want to know if what you bought is a gray-market product, check to see if your product’s model number differs from that of the domestic model or if the product’s packaging and/or instructions aren’t in English. Also check any contact information that came with the product; customer support telephone numbers or email addresses may point to international contacts that likely won’t be able to help you—and the manufacturer’s domestic customer service may not be allowed to help you.

Common sources of gray-market goods

Typically speaking, if you’re buying through a retailer like Amazon (specifically, items sold directly by Amazon, aka “first-party” sales) or Best Buy, you’ll be in the clear. But don’t assume that just because you’re buying from a well-known online store your order is going through the right channels. Some retailers are more open about selling gray-market products, while others try to keep things vague. Retailers like B&H and East Coast TVs are very clear about selling gray-market, or “international” items, but others—including eBay, many third-party merchants who sell through Amazon, and deal sites like Groupon—might be a bit more vague. Sometimes, they’ll simply exclude warranty info and just label the item as new, which isn’t lying, technically. You might have difficulty finding out if this is the case for your product because some retailers also sell domestic open-box or returned items in a way similar to how they sell gray-market goods. Therefore, we think the best way to check if a product is from the gray market is to determine if it has a manufacturer’s warranty.

In our experience, you’re significantly more likely to find gray-market goods in some categories as opposed to others. As we mentioned above, we encounter gray-market cameras and lenses most often. Domestic and international models generally don’t differ much—their manufacturing and operation are usually the same, and so are their markings. However, because prices can vary so much from market to market, you stand to save a significant amount by buying an international model, but by buying a product without a warranty, you’re potentially gambling hundreds of dollars if something goes wrong with it.

Once you get to the fine print, you realize that this is a model meant for the international market that may ship to you in a plain white box and comes with a warranty provided by the seller, not by Canon. Screenshot: Adam Burakowski

When searching for deals, we also frequently encounter gray-market phones. International models drop in price much faster than domestic ones—but they won’t necessarily work on all the same 3G LTE bands domestic models will.

All of that said, despite the risks, buying a gray-market product isn’t necessarily a disaster. Again, doing so isn’t illegal, and it can land you a working product for well below its normal street price. If the potential rewards outweigh the risks for you, a gray-market product might be worth considering. However, we will never recommend a gray-market deal to our readers because we think those deals just aren’t for most people—too much could go wrong with a camera or lens to take the risk of not having warranty protection or customer support just to save a few hundred bucks.

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